100 Days
by KinHiromi
Summary: 100 days for Kise to realize, that love works better than morphine to soothe his pain. KiKuro.


Title: 100 Days

Anime: Kuroko no Basuke/Kuroko's Basketball

Summary: 100 days for Kise to realize, that love works better than morphine to soothe his pain.

Pairing: KiKuro

Genre: Romance

Rating: PG-13

* * *

><p>"Is he waking up?"<p>

_I doubt so._

"I swear his eyelids just twitched."

_I doubt so._

"It must be the anesthetic."

"I hope it wears off soon."

That was the last thing Kise would ever want. Kise would be ripped away from the darkness that made him so secure into reality—something, that he wish he could avoid forever.

"Kise… come on, wake up already. I'm Aomine."

"I'm Akashi, Ryouta. Do you hear us?"

How he wished he could tell them how something as easy as this could be so difficult to accomplish. But all it took was just one touch. The moment he brushed his finger across the blonde's arm, it seemed like a key or a fault line that would lead him to all the suffering. He could feel the piercing pain on his rip cage whenever oxygen filled his lungs.

Morphine would not make him feel better.

He opened his eyes and screamed in pain.

-xxx-

"Are you alright, Ryouta?" Akashi sat beside his bed and patted him gently by my shoulder. "_Now, that's different from our captain... He must really care for us." _Kise thought.

"I feel terrible." He tilted his head to look at the both of them and forced a smile between his lips, "and I look terrible, don't I?"

"Don't be an idiot, Kise. You know you look better than any of us." Aomine replied curtly and folded his arms, "You idiot. You are not supposed to drink and drive in the first place. Has your intelligence gone down to zero?"

"Ah." Kise frowned at the tanned man's unfeeling statement and started to press the button with his right index finger for more morphine.

"Kise…" Aomine stood up and wiped his cold sweat away with a white towel, "Does it hurt a lot?"

"The morphine doesn't really help. I feel fucking terrible now."

"I will get a doctor." Akashi ran out of the hospital ward as Kise fidgeted on the bed in pain. "_Why did I survive, why do I have to go through such pain and torment? Was it meant to be a form of punishment?_" Kise grabbed hold to the rim of the blanket and bit his lips to stop himself from screaming.

It seemed like a vicious cycle every day, where the blonde had to clench his teeth and get through the next 24 hours in discomfort. Aomine and Akashi stopped visiting him as often as they did in the first month when Kise was hospitalized, probably because the term break was over and they had to return to school. Kise did not blame them at all, but he could not help, and feel disappointed. Neither did he tell them, that their presence worked better than morphine at times.

**58th day**

The picturesque view at the hospital's park was the only thing that made Kise happier this summer. He would sit on one of the benches facing the pond and start to think about things. He had no idea what he was thinking about actually; no definite topic or question worth remembering. But it made him feel better after being a useless bum for the past sixteen years of his life.

"Hello." He looked up and spotted a pale-looking boy lightly smiling at the blonde.

"Hey." Kise greeted back. The guy ruffled his light blue hair between his fingers.

"What are you doing?"

"Thinking."

"Thinking of someone?"

Kise shook his head and replied, "No one in particular." The blonde took another glance of the boy and slivered his lips shyly. If he ever had a choice, Kise would never wish to meet someone like him in a place like this—Maybe a coffee shop, or near the Hans River in the evening. Anywhere else would be better than a hospital.

"What happened to you?"

"I met in an accident and broke my ribcage. My lungs were severely damaged." His smile disappeared gradually while he shifted to look at Kise's abdomen. Since the moment Kise had woken up after the surgery, almost everyone tried to comfort him and tell_, "I know how you feel."_ But no, Kise knew they didn't. None of them would understand how much he had suffered every night; none of them would understand how it feels like when he screamed in pain till his voice became coarse.

But Kise thought this guy understood.

"Kise Ryouta! Mr. Kise!" It was terribly infuriating when someone tried to interrupt his conversation. Knitting his brows together, Kise smiled at the stranger and said, "Tomorrow at this bench?"

The stranger nodded his head and slivered his thin lips gently. As Kise stood up and walked away from the bench towards the lady in pink, he parted his lips and whispered his name gently under his breath, "Bye, Kise-kun."

Kise never knew his name.

**75th day**

He never showed up the next day though; neither did he on the day after the next. Kise continued sitting on the same bench with his knees drawn up to his chest and he began wondering about things—this time, with a particular person in mind. Maybe it was because he was bored, the blonde thought, or maybe, because taking a glimpse of him made Kise feel better.

The stranger's smile seemed to work better than the large amount of morphine he took every day. Throwing a pebble towards the surface of the water, Kise shifted his gaze to look at his distorted reflection. It was then when the blonde finally saw him. _The stranger_.

"Kise-kun." He tapped Kise's shoulders softly and reached his hand for the sleeve of the blonde's pajamas.

"Hey."

"Feeling better?"

"Yes." _Thanks to you_, he wanted to say, "What about you?"

"Still the same." The stranger pulled Kise towards the bench and sat down by my side.

"I never knew your name." Curling up the sides of his lips, the stranger lifted up Kise's right hand and placed the tips of his index finger gently on the blonde's palm.

_Kuroko Tetsuya_.

"It's a secret, Kise-kun."

"Secret?" Kuroko nodded his head and pressed his finger on his lips.

"There are some things worth keeping as a secret." He smiled and interlocked his fingers with the blonde's. Kise had never fallen in love with someone so badly before — Where someone's voice would make his heart stir, and by looking at them could make the blonde's stomach flutter as if there were hundreds of butterfly wings battering in it.

"I'll be discharged at the end of the month. What about you, Kurokocchi?" He looked at me in confusion for a moment and blinked his eyes for a couple of times. _At the nickname_, Kise guessed.

"Soon, I guess."

"Well… I was wondering, Kurokocchi… If we can, you know… meet after we are discharged."

"Meet?" Kise let out a cough and began to stammer.

"Yeah… meet… date…"

"Date?"

"Yes — we can have dinner together, then take a stroll at the Hans River or something." Kuroko began to snigger, his hands covering his mouth briefly.

"Sure, Kise-kun." He looked at Kise in the eye and continued, "I would love to."

**96th day**

Kise spent the rest of his days at the hospital in the park with Kuroko — and they eventually claimed that particular bench as ours. Kuroko was the listener and Kise was the talker; he would listen to the blonde enthusiastically even if he talked to him about the most meaningless things—his dreams, his future, his past, his family.

'Mine', 'My', 'I', was all that Kise talked about.

Kuroko never talked about himself; or maybe just a little. Kise learnt, that Kuroko liked Basketball and adored vanilla shakes. He told him how much he regretted about the things he had done, but he never told the blonde what went wrong.

But there was something that he said, that Kise would never forget — the blonde remembered how Kuroko leaned towards him and placed his lips just an inch away from Kise's right ear. And the bluenette caught him off guard when he whispered, _"I think I like you much more than expected... I think I love you."_

That was the day where their lips met, and where Kise finally found the courage to wrap his arms around his waist and caress his soft blue hair between his fingers.

Kise thought, he loved him much more than he'd expected.

**100th day**

Sitting at the edge of the hospital bed, Kise slipped his feet into the new pair of sneakers, that Akashi and Aomine bought for him. His captain looked at the blonde guiltily and reached out for his cellphone from his bag.

"Ryouta."

"Yes, Akashicchi?" Kise took cell phone from him and stuffed it back into his pocket. There was something else far more important than checking his missed calls and unread messages.

"Are you angry? We have not visited you in a fortnight." Kise shook his head and grinned at him.

"No! Not at all." Their absence during the period that the blonde was hospitalized just meant, that he could spend more time with his beloved, Kuroko behind their backs. Of course, they did not know anything about their relationship and his love life was much more active than what they had expected.

"You look happier than I've expected, Kise." Aomine sniggered and folded his arms.

"I just got used to your absence, my friends." Kise tapped his feet on the ground and ruffled his blonde hair between his fingers, "I'll be right back."

Before they could even stop him, the blonde ran out of the hospital ward towards the park.

Kise guessed it would be a pretty long time before he could meet him again. It was only last night when he realized that there were loads of things, that he didn't tell Kuroko — Kise didn't have the chance to admit that he used to live without a dream until he met him.

Neither had he told Kuroko, that he loved him so, so much.

But as he approached the empty bench at the park, Kise began to wonder if it was all his wishful thinking. Maybe Kuroko was just afraid — Was it because he couldn't bear to see Kise off? Or was it because Kuroko wasn't ready to commit just like how Kise was willing to?

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But he never showed up. Kise left without an answer.

**105th day**

The nurse stared at the blonde in confusion as Kise repeated his name.

"Kuroko. Kuroko Tetsuya." He tapped his fingers on the counter impatiently as she checked her system for his name again, "Sir… I'm telling you there's no patient by the name of 'Tetsuya Kuroko'."

"You must have made a mistake, I'm sure."

"But… There's a name of…." She frowned at me and bit her lips.

"Of what?"

"There was a person by that name on the day you were admitted into the hospital, Mr. Kise. But don't you know about this?"

"About what?"

"Kuroko Tetsuya's family signed for a lung transplant to save you. Mr. Kuroko was suffering from heart failure when he was admitted into the hospital; there wasn't a chance he could survive through the night."

"Kurokocchi... Kuroko Tetsuya's dead?"

"He was killed in the same car accident, that you were involved in."

Kise's mind went blank; his lips began to tremble as he tried to hold back his tears. Without saying a single word, the blonde walked away from the counter towards the opposite direction. But he had no idea where he was going — he just continued walking… or maybe he was running… or…

Or...

But his feet brought him to a place Kise had been yearning to go to. Even that gentle breeze carried the bluenette's scent and every fond memory, that Kise did not wish to remember at this moment. Sitting at one end of the bench with his knees drawn up to his chest, the blonde tilted his head to the side and ran his fingers down the wooden edges.

Kise thought he would freak out—who wouldn't when you fell in love with 'something' that once existed? But instead, he felt frustrated and betrayed. Why didn't Kuroko tell me anything?

"Kise Ryouta." He was there, less than a meter away from him, "You freaked out, didn't you?"

"What the fuck are you, Kuroko Tetsuya?!"

He took a few steps towards the blonde.

"A memory."

"No. You are not a memory. You are trying to haunt me." When Kuroko took another step forward, Kise took another two steps backwards.

"I'm sorry, Kise-kun."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would you look at me again if I have told you so?" Kuroko seemed to have seen the blonde through and noticed that he had rendered Kise speechless when their gazes met.

"Why did you come back for me?"

"I just wanted to make sure that I didn't make the wrong decision, Kise-kun. You may not remember me, but I can remember you when you collapsed in the middle of the road right in front of me." Kuroko slivered his lips weakly and continued, "Does love work better than morphine?"

"Maybe… But it hurts even more right now."

"I'm sorry, Kise-kun." Kise no longer backed away when the bluenette approached him. Wrapping his arms around the blonde's neck gently, Kise blinked his eyes nervously for a couple a times before doing the same.

"Kurokocchi… let's not meet like this ever again, shall we?"

"Promise." Kuroko buried himself into his arms and tightened his grip around the blonde.

"You made up the best 100 days of my life."

"Then… remember it, Kise-kun. Remember that I love you."

"I love you, Kurokocchi. I love you… I love you…"

The gentle breeze brought Kuroko away the moment Kise opened his eyes.


End file.
